Category Archives: Social Sciences

You’ll find domain-specific material designed to meet Common Core Standards in social studies, along with adapted and differentiated materials that deal with a broad array of conceptual knowledge in the social sciences. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Isaac Asimov on Problems, Knowledge, and Ignorance

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1922)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Term of Art: Tenure

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“tenure: A legal guarantee that a teacher cannot be removed from his or her position without cause and that any removal will be done in accordance with due process. Teaches in public schools usually gain tenure if they have served satisfactorily for three to five years. Tenure was created to protect teachers from capricious administrators and to preserve their academic freedom.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: (1746-1827) Swiss educational reformer. Between 1805 and 1825 he directed the Yverdon Institute (near Neuchatel), which drew pupils and educators (including Friedrich Froebel) from all over Europe. His teaching method emphasized group rather than individual recitation and focused on such participatory activities as drawing, writing, singing, physical exercise, model making, collecting, mapmaking, and field trips. Among his ideas, considered radically innovative at the time, were making allowances for individual differences, grouping students by ability rather than age, and encouraging formal teacher training.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Assimilation

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on assimilation, used to mean the process by which immigrants internalize and, well, assimilate, the social and cultural mores of the nation to which they have immigrated (without, one hopes, losing the social and cultural mores of the nation from which they have emigrated; for if they do, where we will get the wonderful varieties of ethnic food that have entered the American diet since my childhood?).

Anyway, this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one compound sentence and two comprehension questions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck on the Evolution of the Giraffe

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“It is interesting to observe the result of habit in the peculiar shape and size of the giraffe (Camelo-pardalis): this animal, the largest of mammals, is known to live in the interior of Africa in places where the soil is nearly always arid and barren, so that it is obliged to browse on the leaves of trees and make a constant effort to reach them. From this habit long maintained in all its race, it has resulted that the animal’s fore-legs have become longer than its hind legs, and that its neck is lengthened to such a degree that the giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, attains a height of six metres.”

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Philosophie Zoologique pt. 1 ch. 7 (1809)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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The Ozone Layer

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the ozone layer along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Given that the United States Supreme Court recently handed down a decision, in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency et al, limiting the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions of chemicals that pollute the air and use the atmosphere of this planet for, you know, a toilet, this material may be suddenly quite relevant.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Cultural Literacy: Assembly Line

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the assembly line as a means of organizing production. This is half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. In other words, just the basics on this term and what it represents

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Term of Art: Tech Prep

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“tech prep: A four-year program (the last two years of high school plus two years of community college) that leads to an associate degree or a two-year certificate in a specific career field. The carefully integrated and sequenced curriculum includes a common core of mathematics, science, communications, and technologies. Tech prep provides training for the average student who does not want to attend a four-year college but wants to prepare for a career.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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Write It Right: Criticize for Condemn or Disparage

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Criticize for Condemn or Disparage. Criticism is not necessarily censorious; it may approve.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Book of Answers: The Threepenny Opera

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“What was the source of Betrolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928)? Brecht follows the general outline of English playwright John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), but focuses more on social evils.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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